Distinguishing itself from other surveys by focusing on good practices sharing instead of pure competition ranking, the UMii Report illustrates the performance of the 30 cities according to the maturity level of their innovation ecosystem. The index has been based on the testing of nine innovation levers divided in three categories: readiness, deployment and liveability. A contextual dimension was taken into consideration for each city when evaluating the performances in the different domains.

The results of the survey will be presented in a series of six different news articles, covering the regions in which the UMii cities are located and their specificities. The fourth article of the UMii series covers the region of Europe, in honour of European Innovation Week.

Creating value for European cities and their inhabitants

The 9th European Innovation Summit Week has kicked off on Monday 27 November 2017. This major event offers a great opportunity to highlight how involved European institutions are in helping foster innovation in the 28 member states. The theme of this year’s Summit could not have been more relevant to our sector, as the speakers share their views on how to innovate by ‘turning knowledge and ideas into value for society’. Together, through innovation in public transport, we are creating value for cities and their inhabitants.

The UMii project team succeeded in concretely presenting the different ecosystems in 11 European cities: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Geneva, Helsinki, Manchester, Milan, Munich, Lisbon, London, Vienna, and Warsaw. Although difficult to highlight the specificities of each city in one article, it is possible to outline some important generators of innovation between the UMii cities in Europe.

Together, through innovation in public transport, we are creating value for cities and their inhabitants.

EU collaboration for greater innovation

One of the first elements that stands out is the level of involvement of the EU Commission in the funding of innovative projects in the public transport sector. Indeed, according to the UMii Report, cities such as Lisbon, Warsaw, Munich and Manchester are partly financed either by the EU Horizon 2020 funds, through the Civitas Initiative (EU funded project) or by the EU Smarter Together project.

This support provided by the EU on mobility projects were key in helping develop and implement new technologies such as MaaS (Mobility as a Service). Seen by experts as one of the latest important trends in the sector, MaaS has already been tested or expected to be implemented in many European capitals. According to the UMii Report, that is especially the case in Amsterdam, Milan and Vienna. While the latter tested a prototype in 2015, the two other cities are working towards the implementation of integrating new mobility platforms as soon as possible.

Another priority for major European cities is data. The word is on everyone’s lips and the challenge on every mobility tech geek’s mind. For example, London, Lisbon and Geneva are using different mechanisms to collect mobility data. These figures are then used to better understand the mobility habits of users, and are offered openly to users and third parties to help develop new mobility options and apps. These apps can also be developed in “labs” or incubators.

European cities, operators and industries have always been leading innovation drivers in the world. There are, of course, many other elements presented in the UMii Report characterising the different cities that were analysed.

European Innovation Week provides a great opportunity to highlight the importance of EU collaboration in fostering new innovation. UITP actively collaborates with European institutions and multiple actors from the sector to develop and help implement multiple new innovations in the public transport sector. Find out more information about our successful projects or latest launches!

About UITP

As a passionate champion of sustainable urban mobility, UITP is internationally recognised for its work to advance the development of this critical policy agenda. UITP has a long history to its name, and is the only worldwide network to bring together all public transport stakeholders and all sustainable transport modes.